The Frontier of Consciousness Hacking

25. 04. 2016 Written byMikey Siegel & Gareth Gwyn

The threshold of discovery where science, spirit and humanity are converging with technology.

Existence in today’s era relates with humanity in new and fascinating ways. Although for centuries our connection with the cosmos has been interwoven within work, play, organizational systems and relationships, the way in which our unique place relates with these aspects is transforming.

There is a growing body of perception exploring how expanded awareness and sensory contact with the world and ourselves can be better understood by engaging with technology. A particular shared synchronization of this exploration unites under the global community of Consciousness Hacking. The inquiries arising in this space of transformative technologies involve asking questions around what it means to dismantle barriers in order to cultivate deeper connections with our hearts, bodies, minds, nature and each other.

These shared intentions within Consciousness Hacking focus on how technology can act as a self-exploration tool to offer us access to never before seen paths that can help us transform the way we think, feel, and live. For example, these explorations can take us through experiences of suffering into states where we can then access more joy in our lives. While other movements seek to change the world itself, this community presents a different perspective regarding how technology can instead work with us by revealing an endless series of truths about our participation with existence. A welcoming aspect of this movement is that through these pursuits, we can maintain liberty as to how we choose to use this new awareness.

Scientific communities are increasingly recognizing what spiritual traditions have been advocating for thousands of years: through focused self-awareness we can fundamentally change our conscious experience. Now, both science and spirituality, together, help us see that the key to accessing profound joy and contentment lay not in our external circumstances, but in our relationship to ourselves.

Numerous scientific publications on mindfulness and meditation confirm the profound benefits reaped by contemplative practices with technologically supported evidence and feedback. These studies examine questions such as: Is modern enlightenment possible, in harmony with the media and technology that constantly externalize our attention and increase our sense of separation? Can we create new forms of technology to cultivate calm minds, improve relationships, rediscover connectedness, and enhance our lives?

These visionary questions might seem in direct conflict with the constant distraction and information overload surrounding us. Especially because many other pursuits in the current societal and cultural tech landscape aren’t yet involved directly in the techniques of transformative manifestations. But how can we expand these definitions of technology? How can we embrace technology as a series of reflections about who and what we are collectively as a culture? In the same way that a painting is a visible extension of the painter’s being, we are creating this world around us all the time. Technology is not static—it is the manifestation of human ingenuity. It can be anything we want it to be.

So, why does the ever-increasing number of devices around us only offer us glimpses of fleeting happiness? Why don’t our technological interactions offer us lasting nourishment and more meaningful living? One perspective is that this is because we have yet to cultivate the awareness about how to actually be happy. We have a tendency to wallow in psychological turmoil we label anxiety, depression, stress, or victimization. This prevalent suffering has fueled massive pharmaceutical, alcohol, and narcotic industries that only superficially mask the problem. Yet, we might be able to use technology in ways that instead help us understand our own role in contributing to this suffering. And, in turn, these techniques could help us sustain more joyful and meaningful living.

The human capacity for profound peace, connection, joy, unconditional love, and the recognition of our fundamentally unitive nature has been pointed to by countless spiritual and religious traditions for centuries. This is a fundamental human capacity, not a product of religion. Instead, religion and spiritual traditions are expressions of how humans discovered this within themselves and sought to connect through these revelations.

Consciousness Hacking embraces these capacities with new forms of connection. This includes ways in which we can transcend the restricting prison of language and the limitations of any single human perspective. The community includes exponential technologies into this experiential pursuit of an inherently dynamic, adaptive, and enlivening perception. The modalities seek to meet people exactly where they are, patiently and skillfully supporting the realization of the most profound aspects of our human experience. The current manifestations appear in forms of apps, wearable devices, and primitive artificially intelligent interactions. Yet, as these transformative technologies evolve, they continue to take on a category of their own. The creations in this category bridge reasoning and sensing into a seamless experience offering individuals the ability to understand their unique place in the whole as well as explore the sensational value of synchronization and entrainment.

Technologies, sciences and organizing intelligences do not have fixed locations; they are properties of the universe in which we participate. Through expanding our sensory perceptions of these properties, we begin to take part in the animation of the growth of new cells, the evolution of new species, the design of computer systems, and the development of artificial intelligence into wisdom.

Wisdom, too, has no location and is not bound to human minds. Wisdom expressing through the language and being of a luminary, is just one way that it manifests. As easily as it expresses through word or deed, wisdom can also express through bits and bytes. Humanity has the capacity to play an integral role in this unfolding story where science, spirit and technology are converging. Let’s discover these new paths together.

This would make me less uncomfortable if technology was seen as no more (or less) important than flowers, dung, overripe peaches, bumble bees, termites and ducks for the transformation of consciousness.